You’ll need a Visa to visit North Korea.

We are packed and ready to go, but this morning we hit our first travel snag. American Airlines would’t let us check in. It said we weren’t “allowed to check in for this location, referring us to the agent in the terminal”. After an unsuccessful call to AA, we decided to drive to the airport to sort this out tonight before our early morning departure time. 

Luckily the terminal was empty and the AA management had full focus on our problem. After lots of clicking, she said she just needed to clear up the visa requirements. That was holding up our boarding passes. I replied that I didn’t believe there to be visa requirements for Korea. If there was any two allies on this planet, US and Korea were the two.  She was very confused by the screen because she read there were visa requirements. Finally, she figured it out. “Are you going to North Korea? Because you’ll need to have a Visa and travel documents.”  She betrayed no deep understanding of what a bizarre question that is. How could a woman holding our 3 American passports traveling to Seoul could truly even wonder if we were planning travel to North Korea.

“No, we will absolutely not be going to North Korea. In fact, we will do everything in our power to prevent such an incident.”

“Oh, okay. Then no visa requirements. I’ll print your boarding passes.”

And that’s the story of how American Airlines confused North Korea and South Korea and wouldn’t board us until we straightened it out.

Off to bed now for a 0500 departure for the airport. Thanks Pop for being our Uber!  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Two Weapons and Two States

Image
 We woke up at 0400 and roused the girls at 0430 for a 0500 departure from our Grand Canyon hotel. Everybody had gone to bed early (around 7pm), so we weren’t even grumpy.  We ate breakfast in the car which produced some pretty creepy pictures.  We were surprised at the sheer number of people awake and beginning a multitude of adventures at 0500.  We drove straight to Goulding’s Lodge at Monument Valley, arriving just as the eclipse began. A dog Carmen named Fin became our instant companion. He even rolled over and shook, hoping to share some of our lunch. He was an entertaining and gentle companion.  Fin kept looking toward the sun too, and we wondered if he sensed the eclipse somehow. Carmen tried to put the glasses on him but he didn’t understand.  Lots of folks were out looking at the eclipse, but nothing felt crowded because there were plenty of spots along the road to stop at.  We ate car sandwiches for lunch as we watched the eclipse.  Though it didn’t get dark at totality, the
Read more

It’s got something to do with a Monkey, Bieber, and Germany…

Image
 We roamed around the Grand Canyon resort this evening, shopping, looking at museum exhibits, and marveling at the view.  The Thunderbird Lodge, Our Hotel We believe our hotel to be the best one, no joking.  It’s in the center of everything.  The rooms are retro cute, very clean, and have amazing second story views of the canyon.   We’d like to update you an interaction we had in a park store.  Carmen and I both distinctly heard a woman say, “Thank you Justin” in the Grand Canyon Marketplace. We have become Beliebers that Justin WAS on the flight to Flagstaff, not the flight to Ontario.  We are keeping an eye out for him.  We also learned that Joel calls him “The Bieb”, which we all thought was too familiar, as if they went to high school together (Beth), were college roommates (Carmen), or have worked with him (Jane).  Either way, we are prepared to make friends with the Bieb to ask him that important question, “Why are you seen without a shirt so often?”  We also tried to narrow down
Read more

They made some good points.

Image
 We woke up to a shockingly cold Friday the 13th, with temps in the low 30s and a forecasted high of 62. We opened the windows to a slowly unfolding scene of the Grand Canyon, as the sun highlighted different rock formations on its rise.  We didn’t have to wake the girls.  They were up and at ‘‘em before we had even scheduled to wake them.  The rooms were clean and cozy with no discernible noise. Unlucky Charms shirts to celebrate Friday the 13th We bought a cookie each for our lunches, and this one Jane claims was the size of her face. She was right.  We made sack lunches to have for our adventures, so we didn’t have to struggle finding food in the park.  I had an audience.  We headed out of room to see the sights by 7:30 in the morning.  Carmen indicating on the map where we were going to start and finish our bike ride.  The view from behind the hotel is stunning. We stopped for hot coca and coffee before we started the day.  Vintage Carriage in Hotel Lobby Before our bike adventure,
Read more